Beneficial
by ItCouldBeSweet
Summary: Cas, the curmudgeon that he is, resists indulging in Sam's recently acquired habit. Not like he doesn't have one of his own. For Ace!Sam Day on tumblr.


"But you promised me."

"I've had time to reflect on what I said since then and..."

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Sam leaning against the hotel's door, arms behind his back and hair slipping to one side of his head as he tilted it, just touching his shoulder. _Because he wants you to look._ But Cas refused to look, for all that awaited him were pouting lips and eyes questioning how Cas could hurt him so. Puppy eyes as Dean called them. He wasn't entirely sure how the eyes of a human and dog could be similar until he saw videos on TV and the internet of canines being scolded. No matter how severe the act, they would look at the human holding the camera with the same exact face -except a little furrier- that Sam has when someone is withholding something from him.

His eyes met Sam's... and he sighed. "That may work on Dean, but my resolution is much stronger than his." After hanging his black coat onto the bedpost (Sam's many jackets taking residence on all the hooks along the wall), he began to pull at his tie. After a long drive and an early dinner filling up both Sam and his brother past contentment, the three decided to settle in to their rooms first before conversing one last time about tomorrow's case. And instead of waiting until Dean left for the night, Sam thought he had more than enough time to have his way with Cas.

"It's not some kind of ruse, Cas." He glanced aside and smiled. "Okay, maybe a little. But you did promise a couple days ago you'd let me."

"Yes I did," he admitted with some guilt. "But it's..."

Sam moved onto the bed behind Cas as he sulkily sunk down. "It's what?"

"I think it's demeaning."

"Really? How so?"

"You have to ask?" Cas stated skeptically.

Of course he had to ask, otherwise he wouldn't have! What would bother Cas so much about something so simple that he'd try to decline his way out of it? He went through the procedure in his mind, all the steps, not that it involved very much time or effort, and couldn't come up with anything. Anything that he himself would interpret as demeaning. No matter how much time Cas spent on Earth, no amount of human contact could take the angel out of an angel – not even someone like Gabriel. "Do you mean what I use?"

The back of Cas' head moved up and down. Sam crawled up to him and wrapped his long arms around his chest, dark hair cushioning his cheek. "I have to use that," he chuckled. "Nothing else is fine enough to do a halfway decent job. Would you rather have me use a comb?"

"I'd rather you not do it at all," Cas pouted similar to a child. Which he could be sometimes. Another angelic trait that couldn't simply be extracted like grace.

"Well help me understand a little better. If you'd tell me why I might not ask again." As much as Sam anticipated tending to Cas, if it troubled him that deeply he'd stop, that's the end of it. Something so petty isn't worth the stress.

"It just doesn't make sense to me. I guess, as an angel, I wouldn't be able to comprehend it."

"Weaseling your way out of an explanation by making me do the talking, huh?" He buried his nose into Cas's hair and nudged him. "So I _guess_ I'll play along. Don't be mad at me but I'm taking off your shirt." Cas began to protest and failed to be reassured when Sam told him _that_ wasn't where this was going, so he bit his tongue as he unfastened the buttons and relieved Cas of his white dress shirt. Unable to see Sam's face, he felt on display and surprisingly somewhat uncomfortable in his body.

"If I promise you I have nothing in my hands, would you take them out for me? It's not a trick!" Sam yelped when Cas tried to turn around to face him, now understanding why the Winchester had him remove his clothing. How this would be able to prove a point he didn't dare guess. But what did he have to lose? Sam breaks a promise and he sleeps alone tonight, an easy solution for someone beginning to grow very accustomed to another body in his bed.

The first time it happened was involuntary, an instinctual reaction to stimulus from a pleasing source: Their second kiss. Not the first, no, too clumsy, too tense. But the night after a troublesome hunt, with a fair share of blood being shed on both sides, took both of them by surprise. Back at the bunker, as both men stripped of their soiled clothing, Sam brought to attention that he had seen Cas shirtless only once before, that being when his brother sliced an angel banishing sigil onto his chest. He laughed as Cas grumbled that it was not a pleasant experience.

"Even back then I wanted to see you strip, just not like that."

But I'm okay now. That's what he said, which they both knew was a lie because there's never a moment either of them are _okay_. There is blood on their hands as they speak; okay doesn't live here anymore. But in a way, that very moment, they were close as they were going to get to it. They were alive, and they loved each other.

He pressed close to Cas, his own bare chest against his and kissed him as softly as he'd done in years. Seconds pass and Cas pulls back, the slightest of gasps echoing blissfully in Sam's head. Such a nice sound, one he needed to hear again, but Cas beats him to it, a hand placed on his shoulder for leverage and offered not a moment of resistance as Sam pushed inside. So at ease and comfortable; it felt like home, or what he imagined a home would feel like. Living a moment he never thought could happen – because he was an "abomination," because of Dean. "Only a kiss" meant the entire world to Sam.

Cas shuddered against him and the thud of something hitting the wall made him open his eyes...

Not wanting to break anything like the first time it happened, Cas moved to the foot of the bed to take advantage of the extra room. He had since stopped shuddering (Sam is confident he normally wouldn't do that, but that he, much like Sam, was enjoying the moment), but still took time to prepare himself. Sam asked why it wasn't automatic like he assumed it would be for all angels. It puts a strain on grace, Cas replied, to maintain the corporeal nature of something ethereal. Most angels choose not to do this because of that fact; they shadowed them instead.

As he relaxed his back they began to unfold – unravel, really, revealing themselves from top to bottom like a lowering curtain. Stretched out lengthwise as not to bend askew and rather painfully on the bed, the wings were long, much longer than his deceitful shadow of them. What Sam initially noticed on that night was then just how dark they were. Black that reflected azure in a certain light, and so soft you were almost afraid to touch it, something Sam got over quickly once he did. But what struck Sam odd was how, while on display, the wings fused to his back like they were there all along and left no mark once hidden. He asked if it was an "angel thing," to which Cas replied "More or less." As many times as Sam has touched them since (and handling angel feathers for spells in the past), he still held them in reverence. Angel wings... _Cas's_ angel wings, unique to him and voluminous, much more than he thought they would be. And, for some reason, Sam was the only one to see them.

An exploratory wiggle. "Is there a purpose for this?"

"This is it."

Cas folded his wings up as much as he could to cast an indignant eye upon Sam, but the arch of the left one blocked his view causing him to grunt and Sam to grin.

"I mean it, Cas." He continued a little softer. "You wonder why I ask you to project your wings just so I can groom them. Right now – now is the reason." It didn't feel right to speak to Cas from behind so he pushed himself off the bed and dragged a chair from the kitchen into easier view.

"I noticed a pattern after the first 2 times. Coming home after a long ride, me nearly getting my throat slit. It was the two of us, alone. No fighting, no running, no aggravation. Quiet. I'd get that toothbrush that I know you like so much, sit you down, and I'd... lose myself, you know? Just for a little while. Like a zen garden. You get lost in the monotony of the movement.

"So now," a flush came over him and he averted his eyes momentarily, "it's not even like therapy anymore. It's comforting. I see your wings and it's like yeah, it's going to be okay. As long as I see them it's gonna be okay. I don't have to worry about myself or somebody else dying for a couple minutes. I'm kind of honored you'd let me touch them at all."

"Honored is, um..."

"A weird choice of words, right? But I mean it. People could take advantage of you right now, trying to steals your feathers or kill you using your grace like you are, but you trust me enough not to."

Trust, a word that always made Cas's human heart twist in his chest. A common one, but one with deep implications to the Winchester brothers, Sam especially. "I don't know how you could trust–"

"We already went through this," Sam said like Cas should know better by now. "The things we've said and done, they're all in the past. To be honest, I'm kinda looking forward to the future." He made a grab for Cas's hand which he gratefully accepted.

Of course Sam was correct. The prospect of life with Sam smoothed away the rough edges of words he wanted desperately to take back. Castiel hoped that time would heal those wounds done to him and executed by him. Sam was so relieved by stability that he never called it to attention anymore, only when Cas did.

"So whenever I take out that toothbrush it doesn't mean that 'it's time to torture Castiel for a half hour,' but that we're finally ready to settle in for the day. That getting your wings shiny is our only concern. And it's an excuse to touch you," he added playfully.

"I do enjoy the attention," Cas had to admit, "...but why a toothbrush?"

"I already told you!" he laughed. "I can't use my comb. The teeth are too far apart."

The jingle of a text message rang out from his pant's pocket. As he unlocked his phone Cas said, "I'm the only one who uses it on your hair."

"If anything good ever came out of my life it's that I was born with hair that never tangles. But see? You get the same thing out of it as I do. It's nice, isn't it?"

A message from Dean. _Coming over soon. You 2 stop doing anything freaky._ He said that on purpose, knowing that his and Cas' relationship was nothing like that. Dean, with the sexual appetite of twenty men, couldn't grasp that neither of them desired each other that way and only sought a close companionship. Not that Dean wanted to imagine his brother having sex with his best friend. Sam was surprised Dean didn't catch on earlier, but having girlfriends it was easy to assume they were physical – not to mention losing his virginity to one. Cas he had an easier time believing, but not by much, Meg naturally coming to mind. "Don't pretend you do not know love and sex are not mutually exclusive, Dean," and with his point understood, that was all Dean had to say where Cas was concerned.

"At least you don't have to worry about walking in on us, unlike _you_." To which Dean tried to defend himself from the various times Sam had accidentally found his brother being intimate with a stranger.

Even now Dean didn't completely fathom a sexless relationship, but seeing the difference it made in his Sammy, with a smile on his face and laughter in his voice, made him retain his comments. He deserved a little happiness for a change, and Dean wanted nothing to do with souring that outlook.

What always stuck Sam as odd was that Dean never once brought up that the person he happened to like was male, again alluding to previous heterosexual trysts. All he had to say was that "you two nerds deserve each other."

A quick reply of _It's safe_ was sent and the phone placed back in his pocket.

Cas held on display in his hand a red hair tie. "Do you keep one of those on you at all times, Cas?" he asked critically.

"Yes... May I?" he said with some trepidation.

"No pigtails?" One day he accidentally left the hair ties in as he and Cas left their motel room, Sam dressed in his interviewing suit. Dean made sure to bring up this factoid once or several times a day.

"No pigtails," answered Cas with a sheepish tone.

Rearranging himself on the chair with his back to Cas, the angel went to work pulling his fingers through Sam's hair before starting to pull it back. The first time he did this Sam thought _Cas has no idea what he's doing, he's gonna break my neck_. The exact opposite happened. Just like his kisses and his touch, he was gentle, never snagging his hair in the loops or jerking his head around. Precise and enjoying the contact, keeping the ponytail low – other than that time with the pigtails. Sam would have declined that day, should have, but Cas looked so eager to try and one can't say no to those eyes.

Once finished with his task Sam turned back around to Cas, admitting to himself that it is nice once in awhile to not have his hair dangling in his face. "How do I look?"

"Handsome."

Sam almost had to pause. "You think so?"

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't. Your hair tends to obscure the definition of your facial features. I'm not to sure why, but having it pulled back draws more attention to the angles and curves."

"I never really liked my nose..."

Cas leaned forward, having to stand a little to reach Sam, kissing him briefly but deep. The sound of his feathers rubbing together... they must be encircling above them; he thought he could feel their shadow, blocking the light from above. Breaking apart he whispered emphatically against Sam's lips: "Don't."

If it meant kissing Cas, Sam would complain about his body a hell of a lot more.

As the doorknob began to turn Cas had to wonder if this scene, the two of them in various states of undress, wings expanded and hair tied back, would fit into Dean's category of "weird."


End file.
